Two memorials

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Recently I posted a photograph of a gravestone that I described as "ordinary". Probably the most interesting aspect of the memorial was the four lines of verse it carries. The writer of these clearly had no time for those tombs whose unctuous prose, through flattery, exaggeration and embellishment, with no regard for humility, proclaim to the world at great length how the deceased embodied every virtue and was held in the highest regard by all who knew him.

I was reminded of this memorial the other day when I was in the church of St Martin in Stamford, Lincolnshire. This building houses the Burghley Chapel with several tombs of the Cecil family of nearby Burghley House. It also holds several memorials to lesser mortals who did not, reach the exalted heights of, for example, Chancellor to Queen Elizabeth I (William Cecil d.1598) or hold the title of Earl of Exeter.

One of these humbler memorials stands out from the others for three reasons: it appears to be ceramic, an unusual material for a memorial; it was erected by friends of the deceased rather than his family; and the tribute it pays is couched in an unusual manner.I have no idea who Thomas Cooper Goodrich was but he was evidently liked by his friends who survived him. Apart from the fact that he excelled at cricket (I assume it means this - I suppose he could have been spectacularly bad!) the tribute dwells on only the very particular personal qualities that endeared him to those who commissioned the memorial. There is no portrait, no list of public achievements, nothing about his standing in wider society, and no hint that what is said isn't any more than the firm belief of those that penned the words.

Contrast that with the overblown memorial to John Cecil, the fifth Earl of Exeter. The laudatory remarks are in Latin on the side of a copy of a Roman sarcophagus. The Earl and his wife recline in a manner that exudes the easy comfort of the rich and powerful and they look past those who view their tomb, not deigning to meet their gaze. They wear classical rather than contemporary clothes to suggest that they are people whose influence extends beyond their own time. Flanking the tomb are life-size figures of Victory and Art. These mourners are there to emphasise the fact that these are people of significance, learning (see also the books on which his elbow rests) and stature. Behind is a framing obelisk that reaches high into the chapel. A tomb of this sort, sending these kind of messages to posterity, was fashionable at the time and de rigeur for someone of John Cecil's standing. He cannot have known that future generations would see it as both bombastic and slightly silly - just look at those giant furry feet supporting the sarcophagus!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

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Early medieval gravestones

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The gravestones, tomb slabs and funerary monuments of English churches range in date from the twelfth century to the present day. Each one seeks to remember or exalt the deceased. Few of the older ones are in the position where they were first placed and many of these have been damaged by incident, accident or design. Sometimes they have been crudely cut so that a later architectural embellishment could be effected. Often Protestant zealots of the Reformation or later have taken their hammers to them, knocking off noses, limbs and any other easily removed projection as they sought to demonstrate their hatred of "idolatry". However, despite the vicissitudes of time, many have survived, largely intact, bequeathing to later generations information about the sculptural abilities and stylistic preferences of earlier times.

The oldest such monuments were often lids for stone coffins, decorated by a foliate cross or lines of stylised leaves. These usually date from the 1100s. Also found at this time, and a little later, are stone coffin lids with circles, quatrefoils or almond-shaped holes within which are carvings of parts of the  body that is being commemorated. Today's photographs show an example of just such a gravestone that can be seen in the church of St Denys at Sleaford, Lincolnshire. The viewer is invited to look, asit were, through "holes" in the surface of the lid, at the face, hands held in prayer and feet of a woman. The inscription around the edge tells us who she is. It says, "Ye who here pass by, for the soul of Yvette pray, who was the honoured wife of William of Rauceby on whose soul may god have mercy". These holes are incorporated in a leafy cross that decorates the surface of the coffin-shaped stone. It is likely to date from the 1100s. Despite being broken in two and now being fixed to the wall rather than laying flat on or under the ground, the stonework is still clear and the writing remains legible, a testament to the durable qualities that the sculptor conferred on the piece and to the care with which the church has been maintained for the past thousand or so years.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

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Tomb of Catherine of Aragon

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The inability of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to produce a male heir was a trigger that set in motion the English Reformation and the creation of the Church of England. Henry had married Catherine, who was the widow of his older brother, Arthur, under a special dispensation given by the pope. When the desired son was not produced Henry decided to do without Rome. He sought a new wife and removed all the symbols and features of Catherine's royal position. She lived in relative poverty at Kimbolton Castle, Cambridgeshire, until her death in 1536, at which timeCatherine was buried in Peterborough Abbey. This building was raised to cathedral status in 1541. The presence of Catherine of Aragon's tomb may have been a factor in its change of status.

The tomb of Henry's first wife can still be seen in the cathedral. It is in the north aisle next to the sanctuary and is marked by an engraved slab of marble. Above the tomb hangs the Royal Banner of England of the period with fleurs de lys and lions passant guardant, as well as a banner based on the coat of arms of Catherine. On our most recent visit the slab was decorated with flowers and seven pomegranates. This fruit is usually present on the tomb as an acknowledgement of the part it plays in Catherine's coat of arms.

As royal tombs go this is a very modest affair. The cathedral authorities must have recognised this because they commissioned a sign made of individual gold letters to draw attention to it. The letters spell the deceased queen's name with a "K" rather than the more usual (today) "C". However, the tomb's setting alongside the richly decorated sanctuary and the massive stonework of the Norman columns, capitals and vaulting is undoubtedly impressive. On the other side of the sanctuary is the site of Peterborough's other royal connection. Mary, Queen of Scots, was buried here in 1587 after her execution at nearby Fotheringhay Castle. Her body was re-buried in Westminster Abbey on the orders of her son, King James I of England so what we see now is the site of the earlier tomb. It too has gold lettering to mark the location.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

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Hamming up the horror

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I've never been one for horror films. The graphic, gore-laden offerings of today leave me cold, and I simply exclude them from my viewing. I can't say that I'm particularly enamoured of the older horror films either, though there have been a few that I've enjoyed. These have usually been those that approached the subject with either "art" or "comedy" uppermost in mind.

Of the artistic horror movies my favourite has to be Werner Hertzog's 1979 film,  "Nosferatu the Vampyre". It's a homage remake of a 1922 German silent film, and though Bram Stoker's basic Dracula plot underpins it there are differences, principally the focus on Nosferatu's loneliness and disgust with what he does. It's usually the very different depiction of the vampire in this film, and the absence of camp humour that people see as setting it apart from others of the genre. However, I would also cite the sets and the photography as very different from the usual Stoker-derived offerings.

Of the humorous takes on horror one that I liked better than most of the critics and fans is another one based on Bram Stoker's tale. "Dracula: Dead and Loving It", the 1995 film starring Leslie Nielsen is fun and funny. But, being British, I've also seen quite a few Hammer horror films. These were often made with a fairly serious intention - in so far as you can be serious with any horror film - but often ended up being unintentionally funny. They seemed to almost invariably cast either Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, with, often, Ingrid Pitt to add the glamour. Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummies and the murders of Victorian London seemed to figure large in their plots.

It was Hammer Films that came to mind when I visited this ruined medieval church in Norfolk. It is located in a piece of woodland close to a country house, and in the past was used as a folly-cum-eyecatcher by the owners. They built ruinous arches and other structures around and in it to make it into a romantic feature that the family and guests could come upon during short walks from the house. The Victorian tomb must have been placed there at that time, and perhaps the medieval stone coffin. A wooden cross had been placed at one end of the building, and its derelict state combined with the other artefacts suggested the kind of set that a Hammer Films version of Dracula might use. To that end I converted my colour image to black and white, upped the contrast, gave it a slight vignette, and burned in the clouds that the graduated ND filter had already made quite striking. Perhaps you can imagine Christopher Lee in a long black cloak hurrying in through the pointed arch as he averts his eyes from the cross.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

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Sleeping Beauty?

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"Here is an English counterpart to the illusionism which occurs at the same time in Italian painting and German sculpture."
Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), architectural historian

In his book, England's Thousand Best Churches, the author, Simon Jenkins, says of this tomb in the church of St Bartholomew, Much Marcle, Herefordshire, "The effigy might be the original for Sleeping Beauty." It isn't, and he knows that it isn't, but such is the character, delicacy and beauty of this fourteenth century figure sculpture, that this would certainly be the one to emulate for that purpose. The quotation from Nikolaus Pevsner at the head of this piece puts the sculpture into a European context, and at the same time draws our attention to the remarkable - for its time - realism of the figure and its clothing.

Blanche Mortimer was Lady Grandison, the wife of Sir Peter Grandison, and the daughter of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. She died childless, three years before her husband. There is probably no attempt at a likeness in the sculpture of her face, but her clothing, rosary, head dress, and the fall of her gown over the edge of the tomb, are all done with the intention of reproducing the illusion of reality. The tomb would have been painted when new, and the illusion would have been even stronger.

There are many who consider this tomb to be one of England's best from the period. It sits in a church that boasts other fine effigies, including one from the same period as this piece, carved from oak. The Kyrle Chapel has a sumptuously carved tomb from the seventeenth century of Sir John Kyrle and his wife that I made the subject of one of my first blog posts in January 2006.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

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Shades of Pompeii and Henry Moore

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I see a lot of tomb effigies on my visits to England's churches. The earliest are coffin-shaped slabs dating from the twelfth century, and have cross-shaped patterns, swords or low relief figures or part-figures. Effigies become more numerous and more elaborate in subsequent years, right up to the eighteenth century when they can have standing figures in contemporary or classical dress that are life-size or larger. The Victorians were also capable of grandiose monuments with detailed figures, frequently exuding nobility, often deeply sentimental. However, they tended to favour smaller scale wall monuments - plaques with urns, relief figures, palms, doves or Greek sarcophagi. Effigies dating from the twentieth century are extremely rare.

The remaining medieval effigies are often remarkable in terms of the detail that they retain: some look like they were cut yesterday. Alabaster and other kinds of "sculptural" stone is capable of expressing the intricacies of faces, armour, mail, fabric and hair, and sculptors took advantage of this in their work. Of course, many effigies bear the marks of time - vandalism, neglect, iconoclasts, restorers, and simple accidents have all taken their toll on church monuments. Many have succumbed to weather and water when a church roof has leaked or has vanished when the church fell in to a period of disuse. Others have sometimes suffered a spell in the churchyard, removed from their original place in the chancel or nave by zealous Protestants. Those shown in today's photograph, examples that date from 1287 and 1370, must have had some such experience, so smooth are they worn. I came across them in the church of St Michael the Archangel, Laxton, in Nottinghamshire. They represent two members of the de Everingham family. Other effigies from this local dynasty (in  much better condition) can also be seen in the church.

Why did I pass by the better monuments to photograph this battered pair? I think it was because they reminded of the petrified bodies revealed in the excavations of Pompeii, and more particularly the drawings and sculptures of Henry Moore, especially those that he did based on people sheltering in the London Underground during the Blitz of WW2. The smooth undulations, softly modelled by the light from nearby windows echoed, for me, the reclining and supine, abstracted bodies of this early work from which he expanded into his less figurative mature phase.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

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The quest for immortality

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Is the personal quest for immortality through artefacts anything more than simple vanity? I can't see that it is. The idea that you want or need people to remember you after your death seems absurd to me. That family, friends and admirers might wish to remember a person is an entirely different matter, but naming a building after yourself, building your own marble mausoleum, having your statue cast, or writing a book with that purpose in mind, seems to me a rather pathetic act of weakness and vanity. I remember being disappointed when I read that John Keats' poetry was motivated, in large part, by his desire for fame and immortality, and that the drive that leads many to write was only a small part of his motivation. His reason for writing seemed to demean both him and his work.

This thought sometimes comes into my head as I look at the monuments and memorials in churches. Many are erected with gratitude by people who knew the deceased. But others are works commissioned by the person commemorated, and are clearly designed to portray him or her in a flattering light. Those depicting eighteenth century aristocrats in antique Roman costume, exuding classical nobility and learning, accompanied by a tablet of unctuous prose, are the ones I find particularly repugnant.

I don't know whether this fifteenth century knight of the Order of St John in the church of St Botolph, Boston, Lincolnshire, commissioned his own effigy, or whether it was made after his death. It is an interesting alabaster piece, and without sculpture such as this we would know much less about the armour of people of that time. However, as a commemorative piece it has failed, because, unlike many in this type of memorial, we no longer know precisely who is shown. We do know that the Order was active in Boston in the thirteenth century, that it maintained two hospitals and St John's church in the town, and that it was dissolved in 1540, but beyond that we know little. It may be connected with the family of Sir William Weston. Today we can enjoy it as a piece of sculpture, as social history, and as a tangible link to the place's past. But not as this person's stab at immortality.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

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Commemorating death

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Every now and again the appropriateness of how we remember a death surfaces in the press. Recently someone was asked to remove a small shrine from the roadside that she had erected to commemorate her son's death in a traffic accident. Fairly frequently the press reports aggrieved relatives challenging a church's rules on the design of memorials permitted in its churchyard, or a ban on diminutives or nicknames in tombstone inscriptions.

In the past the church seems to have had fewer restrictions of this sort - or perhaps people were more conformist in their choice of memorial. Certainly if you were rich and powerful you could have whatever took your fancy. I see many memorials, dating from the eleventh century to the present day, in my visits to England's churches. Most of them follow the conventions of their day. But, every now and then I come across one that significantly bends and sometimes shatters, the idea of what was considered appropriate. I came upon one such example yesterday in the church of St James, at Spilsby, Lincolnshire.

This edifice, which has a tomb chest out of shot below my image, commemorates the deaths of Richard Bertie (d. 1582) and Baroness Willoughby de Eresby (d. 1580). It is early English Renaissance in style and decidedly weird. The frieze with fruit and leaves is fairly conventional, though the tall diapered niches with their unhistorical columns are quite naive. However, the three tall, crudely carved figures in place of columns (telamones) are just plain odd, not to say ridiculous. They depict a monk and two wild men, one covered in leaves or feathers. These refer to the emblems on the Willoughby coat of arms. Below them are carved skulls, two of which have been damaged over the centuries by inquisitive fingers. Furthermore, the portrait busts of the deceased (rather better carved than the three larger figures it must be said) look completely out of place in their tall niches, like after thoughts or the result of a mis-hearing by the sculptor - "Oh you said one yard high: I thought you said one foot!" You can't help feeling they should be either bigger, or placed on pedestals to better fill their spaces. I suspect that if the sixteenth century church did have rules about the style of memorials this one would fall well outside them. However, strange though it is, I do find it fascinating. And it brought a smile to my face. Looking at the unsmiling visages of the Baroness and her husband I don't think they would have approved of my response!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

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